Wednesday, February 18, 2009

I've never heard of either Grasslung or Pulse Emitter but when I read "pure analog synth" there wasn't much I could do to resist. And why would I even try? I'm a sucker for analog synths, especially of the drone variety, and this split's just what I needed (just what I needed).

I don't think I've ever seen a split titled one way (Grasslung / Pulse Emitter) and have the tracks sequenced in the opposite way (Pulse Emitter first, Grasslung second). For whatever reason, that's the route they chose for this. Kinda confusing. Maybe it's their way of sharing the fame.

Pulse Emitter's 13 minute synth piece is slow moving and spacey. It could easily be found in a scene to some forgotten '80s sci-fi movie where the main character is drifting through the emptiness in his space pod, twiddling knobs every now and then but mostly just letting the auto pilot guide him along to Planet Zortelk. Total headphone material. I could listen to this track over and over again just lying down on my couch for days and it would feel like no time had passed. It's that awesome.

Grasslung takes on the other 2 tracks, neither of which are quite as long as Pulse Emitter's. They still spill out all over the place, though, with that unmistakable synth sprawl. Grasslung's approach, though, is a bit darker and noisier. "2" sounds like giant iron bells being pounded with a soft rubber mallet whose echo mimics an air raid siren while a swarm of beetles buzz around your head. So yeah, not quite as relaxing as that Pulse Emitter track but just as fantastic.

The packaging on this split is absolutely gorgeous, too. A die cut bi-fold panel with an inner print of something that Gustav Dore could have done and a textured sleeve to hold the pro-printed CD-R. Very clean and old fashioned. And, of course, limited to 200 sold out copies.

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